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August 9, 2009

G110: Yankees 5, Red Sox 2

Victor Martinez's two-run home run to deep left off Phil Coke ended Boston's scoreless inning streak at 31. It was the longest stretch of futility since September 1-5, 1974, when the Red Sox went 34 innings without a run.

With a sudden 2-1 lead, Lester (7-5-1-0-7, 107) should have started the eighth. I'm assuming Terry Francona had no plans to have Lester pitch the entire inning and wanted his first reliever out of the pen to start with a clean slate and no runners on base.

And so Lester sat on the bench while Daniel Bard and Hideki Ojakima gave the game away. After Bard retired Derek Jeter, Johnny Damon and Mark Teixeira hit back-to-back home runs. Alex Rodriguez walked, Jorge Posada doubled, and Nick Swisher hit a two-run single.

The Red Sox mounted a rally (of sorts) in the ninth against Mariano Rivera. J.D. Drew singled to right (he was 3-for-4) and after Mike Lowell flied to right and Jason Varitek struck out, pinch-hitter David Ortiz walked. Jacoby Ellsbury was the potential tying run, but he grounded weakly to first to end the game and the series.

The first four-game sweep of the Red Sox in the Bronx since August 16-19, 1985.

And because we cannot let a day go by without a roster move: the Red Sox have called up RHP Fernando Cabrera (1.69, 20-for-20 in save opp.) from Pawtucket and sent Enrique Gonzalez back down. Cabrera's major league stats -- 2004-08 with the Spiders and Orioles -- are here.

The Red Sox turn to Lester to avoid a four-game sweep and to snap a five-game losing streak. A victory tonight would move Boston back to 4.5 GB the Yankees in the East.

Lester has allowed more than three earned runs in only two of his last 14 starts -- a 2.42 ERA since May 21). He has faced the Yankees twice this season: April 24 in Boston (6-7-2-3-7, Sox 5-4) and May 4 at New York (7-6-2-3-10, Sox 6-4).

Thanks in large part to some newfound control of his cut fastball, Pettitte was able to hold the Blue Jays to just one run in 6.2 innings last time out. Struggling with his control at times, Pettitte nonetheless struck out six batters, using the cutter to work ahead in counts.

Pettitte started in Fenway on April 26 (6-6-4(3ER)-4-6) a game the Red Sox won 4-1.

Wankers Of The Day: Daily News writers Bill Madden, who announces "the worm has officially turned" and the Yankees are threatening to turn the AL East into "a cakewalk", and John Harper, who claims that the rivalry now has a "more familiar Yankee dominance" and Brian Cashman has "outmaneuver[ed]" Theo Epstein this year.

670 comments:

So Bay is back.Good. I did not approve of the oddball lineup yesterday.It will be good to get this win and roll that damn worm back over. This domination is just killing me. I mean, c'mon. 3 wins to just 8 for us? They obviously OWN our asses. Look at how they scored at will on Friday night. A repetition of Lester's birthday gift to me (Apr. 24) would be a good thing. Even tho he didn't send a card with it.

For some reason that whole thing with Ram-Ram and A-rod is sticking with me.....It just was real odd, the happenings before the pitch was even thrown. The step out, the"what's up" from arod to v-mart, the cleaning of the plate....It just had a lot of "back and to the left" to it...maybe I am reading to much into it....who knows..

I could see the dominance argument on friday, lighting up smoltz and traber, but not really since they're both gone now (and not forgotten, that was the story of Johnny Rotten).

But come on, a 2-0 win in the 15th inning and 5-0 yesterday in a well pitched game by HH is dominant and we should be handing them the AL east based on that?

Fact is we're in a major team-wide offensive drought this week, our starting pitching has been good (except smoltz and sometimes penny clearly) and our bullpen is probably tiring after the two long games this week...sigh. I find myself getting caught up in this all the time.

Its been a horrible week. The week before that was a good week (sans the two shit losses to Oakland).

Let's start this week (Sunday = start of new week) off great in the toilet and continue it back home against Detroit and FINALLY BEAT FUCKING TEXAS.

The division will not be handed over in early August, we've got two months of baseball, 53 games left. Let's make the most of it and see where it takes us. We're 2/3 of the way through, and it's been a pretty good 2/3 overall. I feel like the first 1/3 was better than the second 1/3, but one more to go. And IIRC, we're a pretty good two-out team.

Oh and I put in an order for tickets for the 18th for Steph and I. Where are you guys sitting?

And this business with C. Guzman, sounds like he's Lugo all over again. Remember, we DFA'ed him for his poor defense, not his hitting abilities. Well, at least this year, he was decent enough at the plate. Just complete shit at defense.

"His defense ain't great and he's having trouble at the plate. A workmanlike shortstop having a not-so-great year. Ok, he's not Derek Jeter -- the greatest shortstop of all-time -- but I'd rather have Nick Green than Nomar!"

This quote from Nick Green's BR page has to be one of the the dumbest thing I've ever read. Considering the part about Jeter I assume he is a MFY fan and that's why he is happy Green is starting for the Sox.

I hope there's not actually a Red Sox fan alive dumb enough to think that Nick fucking Green is a better player than Nomar?!

It took the TBS analyst Dennis Eckersley five innings on Sunday to set the record straight on how powerful the Detroit Tigers’ slumping Magglio Ordonez is.

When Ordonez came up in the second inning of the Twins-Tigers game, Eckersley declared that Ordonez “has never been a big home run guy, like a 30-home-run guy, maybe 20 home runs, 100 R.B.I.’s and flirt with .320 some years.”

A look at mlb.com or baseball-reference.com would have shown Ordonez’s power surge with the White Sox, from 1999 to 2002, when his home run totals were, in order, 30, 32, 31 and 38. He had two other years when he hit 28 and 29 homers. Clicking to Ordonez’s stats would also have revealed the flirtations with .320 cited by Eckersley — but also the 2007 season, when his .363 batting average led the American League.

Five innings later, with Ordonez up for the fourth time, Eckersley tried to correct himself but compounded his error. “We said before he’s not like a 30-home-run guy,” he said. “He may have hit that at one point his career.” But moments later, he got it belatedly right: “Talking about 30-home-run seasons, he’s had four. ... He had some serious pop.”

During Aug. 1’s White Sox-Yankees game, Fox’s Thom Brennaman’s praise of the White Sox’ Paul Konerko ran up against statistical reality. Brennaman said that Konerko, who is rebounding well from a subpar 2008, “is on his way to shattering nearly every offensive record should he stay with the White Sox before his career is over.”

Konerko isn’t very close to leading any of the White Sox’ offensive records. To expect a 33-year-old player, whose most productive years were from 2004 to 2007, to be on a path to setting most of the team’s records is fanciful thinking.

With a .281 batting average with the White Sox, he can’t approach Joe Jackson’s team record of .340. Konerko is nearly 500 runs behind Luke Appling’s record of 1,319, he is 1,145 hits behind Appling’s 2,749. With 296 doubles, Konerko would need to average his career peak of 34 over the next few years to surpass Frank Thomas’s 447.

He is also 467 runs batted in behind Thomas’s team mark of 1,465; 136 home runs behind Thomas’s 447; and 1,101 total bases behind Thomas 3,949.

***

Unbelievable. If any of us did our jobs as poorly, we'd be holding a pink slip by the end of the day.

Andy Pettitte is pitching a perfect game.Andy Pettitte is pitching a perfect game.Andy Pettitte is pitching a perfect game.Andy Pettitte is pitching a perfect game.Andy Pettitte is pitching a perfect game.

redsock said... so did i over-react with my papi slam? i did pound it out right after the conf. ended.

Who? You?.........never....

I asked you earlier in that day what you expected and you said didn't know........but after all that lawyer speak with the other dude, you had to know where it was going, but you still get all riled up.......It's all good though..if we had won 3 in a row and Papi had 4 dongs , it would have been different, for you , him , and all of us.......

DamnDid you hear that shit - "for ONCE you were wrong"Suck my, nevermindMissed the 1st pitch, but only the 1st pitch. Yard work is done! Shower is taken! Veggies are cut! Pizza is cooking! Corona is open!Now...win plz

Phillips? It didn't sound like Phillips to me, but it makes sense, since he said an amazingly dumb thing earlier: talking about Martinez and Teixeira, he basically said they're similar on offense but the difference is that Teix is a better defender, never mentioning that Martinez can play catcher. Just dumb and wrong on so many levels.

Yeah the "For once you are wrong,Derek Jeter!" thing sounded like sarcasm to me. Maybe I'm just giving him the benefit of the doubt though. I kind of like the sound of Miller's voice actually, it's relaxing somehow.

I think it is that rising inflection and fake tone of enthusiasm that I hate more than what he says. I can usually just tune out the announcers (like Joe Morgan) because their voices are flat and deep. I cannot tune out Miller. He just pierces my ears.

Bacon and runs.Sausage and runs.Bacon, sausage and runs.Runs, runs, eggs and runs.Runs with syrup.Custard runs.Runs, runs, runs, bacon and runs.Pancakes with runs on them.And of course, a sandwich with runs, lettuce, runs, turkey, runs and runs. You can add a side of runs, too.